Rhode Island: Fastest Broadband in the Land
Tiny Rhode Island outperforms other US states' broadband speeds, while Montana has the country's slowest broadband, according to analysis of data compiled and researched by Cable.co.uk this month.
M-Lab, a partnership between New America's Open Technology Institute, Google Open Source Research, Princeton University's PlanetLab and others, collected 42 million speed tests for 12 months ending in May 2017. Britain's Cable.co.uk then compiled and extracted the data to compare states' results. The key takeaway? Despite billions of dollars invested, the scope of the US coupled with political, geographic and financial considerations makes equitable broadband speeds challenging for cable operators, telecommunications firms, Internet service providers and utilities or municipalities.
Table 1: State of the States' Broadband
| Ranking |
State |
Mean Download Speed (Mbps) |
Population |
Area (Square Miles) |
| 1 |
Rhode Island |
36.69 |
1,059,080 |
1,545.05 |
| 2 |
Washington |
34.25 |
7,384,721 |
71,299.64 |
| 3 |
Massachusetts |
34.06 |
6,873,018 |
10,554.57 |
| 4 |
Maryland |
33.23 |
6,068,511 |
12,406.68 |
| 5 |
Virginia |
32.72 |
8,492,783 |
42,774.20 |
| 6 |
New Jersey |
32.57 |
8,996,351 |
8,721.30 |
| 7 |
Oregon |
32.16 |
4,144,527 |
98,380.64 |
| 8 |
New York |
30.22 |
19,889,657 |
54,556.00 |
| 9 |
Washington, D.C. |
30.07 |
601,723** |
68.34 |
| 10 |
Delaware |
29.78 |
965,866 |
2,489.27 |
| 11 |
Connecticut |
27.73 |
3,583,134 |
5,543.33 |
| 12 |
Nevada |
26.04 |
2,995,973 |
110,560.71 |
| 13 |
California |
26.00 |
39,849,872 |
163,695.57 |
| 14 |
Texas |
24.82 |
28,449,186 |
268,580.82 |
| 15 |
Pennsylvania |
24.56 |
12,819,975 |
46,055.24 |
| 16 |
Florida |
24.34 |
21,002,678 |
65,754.59 |
| 17 |
Kansas |
23.95 |
2,929,909 |
82,276.84 |
| 18 |
New Hampshire |
23.55 |
1,335,832 |
9,349.94 |
| 19 |
Minnesota |
22.48 |
5,554,532 |
86,938.87 |
| 20 |
Oklahoma |
22.14 |
3,974,794 |
69,898.19 |
| 21 |
Missouri |
21.55 |
6,123,362 |
69,704.31 |
| 22 |
Arizona |
21.18 |
7,026,629 |
113,998.30 |
| 23 |
North Carolina |
21.15 |
10,247,632 |
53,818.51 |
| 24 |
Illinois |
20.47 |
12,815,607 |
57,914.38 |
| 25 |
Colorado |
20.01 |
5,658,546 |
104,093.57 |
| 26 |
Louisiana |
19.20 |
4,714,192 |
51,839.70 |
| 27 |
Georgia |
19.12 |
10,450,316 |
59,424.77 |
| 28 |
Tennessee |
18.92 |
6,705,339 |
42,143.27 |
| 29 |
North Dakota |
18.89 |
790,701 |
70,699.79 |
| 30 |
Indiana |
18.61 |
6,663,280 |
36,417.73 |
| 31 |
Utah |
18.29 |
3,098,761 |
84,898.83 |
| 32 |
Vermont |
17.82 |
624,592 |
9,614 |
| 33 |
Michigan |
17.58 |
9,935,116 |
96,716.11 |
| 34 |
Alabama |
17.49 |
4,884,115 |
52,419.02 |
| 35 |
South Dakota |
17.38 |
868,799 |
77,116.49 |
| 36 |
South Carolina |
17.34 |
5,030,118 |
32,020 |
| 37 |
Wisconsin |
17.23 |
5,795,147 |
65,497.82 |
| 38 |
Iowa |
17.05 |
3,152,735 |
56,271.55 |
| 39 |
Arkansas |
16.45 |
3,000,942 |
53,178.62 |
| 40 |
Nebraska |
15.92 |
1,922,610 |
77,353.73 |
| 41 |
New Mexico |
15.34 |
2,084,193 |
121,589.48 |
| 42 |
West Virginia |
15.11 |
1,834,882 |
24,229.76 |
| 43 |
Ohio |
13.83 |
11,646,273 |
44,824.90 |
| 44 |
Hawaii |
13.69 |
1,454,295 |
10,930.98 |
| 45 |
Kentucky |
13.15 |
4,450,042 |
40,409.02 |
| 46 |
Mississippi |
12.99 |
2,990,113 |
48,430.19 |
| 47 |
Idaho |
12.71 |
1,695,178 |
83,570.08 |
| 48 |
Alaska |
11.99 |
741,204 |
663,267.26 |
| 49 |
Wyoming |
11.89 |
589,713 |
97,813.56 |
| 50 |
Maine |
11.73 |
1,327,472 |
35,384.65 |
There's a big disparity between the fastest and slowest states in the land, with the five speediest states having download speeds approximately three times faster than the five slowest, according to a Cable.co.uk blog. Tiny Rhode Island -- population of about 1.1 million in 2016 squished into 1.5 million miles -- had an average download speed of 36.69 Mbps. Montana -- with a similar population of 1.5 million scattered across more than 147 million miles -- came in last at a paltry 10.94 Mbps, according to Cable.co.uk.
Take a look at the chart to see how states vary, and consider whether population and the miles a state encompasses play any role in the speed of a state's broadband today. Do you think more populated, smaller states have an advantage? Or will federal and industry initiatives to bring broadband to rural and native regions finally deliver more even-handed access across the US?
Related posts:
— Alison Diana, Editor, UBB2020. Follow us on Twitter @UBB2020 or @alisoncdiana.
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